Sunday, December 18, 2016

Love Came Down at Christmas

"Earth's Crammed with Heaven"

- snow in the mountains -

Christmas came early this year with the gift of our second grand baby,
born yesterday, 20 inches long, weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces. As I gazed in wonder at a picture of the tiny
little-one taken at the time of his birth, I couldn’t help but think of a
line from Christina Rossetti’s “Christmas
Poem:”

Love came down at Christmas

Love all lovely, Love Divine.

Love was born at Christmas.

While many people may be enchanted by the poetry of this
season, the idea of a baby born in far away Bethlehem some 2000 years ago
probably seems quite distant and removed even for “believing” Christians. Others
hear that Christmas story about God taking on the flesh of a human being in the birth of “Baby Jesus” and they dismiss it all as a magical fantasy. But yesterday,
as I was looking at the picture of our newborn baby grandchild, it wasn’t at all
difficult for me to imagine how “God,” the Universal energy of Love, would take
the form of human flesh. This year the story of Christmas has taken on a fresh
new meaning for me.

It strikes me that maybe we all take the “overly familiar” Christmas
story far too literally and in doing so we reduce its message and perhaps even trivialize
it. We think it’s only a story about an event that happened in a far away place
in a long ago time and we imagine that the story has little “real” relevance to
our own ordinary lives and, at best, it belongs to Christian believers. But I
actually think that the Christmas story is way bigger than we might imagine and
it belongs to every human being. The powerful poetry about “God” becoming “incarnate”
within human flesh reveals a much deeper and more enduring truth about each and
every one of us.

Yesterday, as I looked in awe at the picture of our newborn grand baby,
I saw in his eyes a wondrous pristine innocence, a “Spark of God” was shining
in him. Love had taken on the form of human flesh, “Love all lovely, Love
Divine.” So it is with each and every
one of us born into our wonderfully fragile human condition. We are all imbued with a “Spark of God,” the
Energy of Love becomes incarnate within each of us when we are born.

As we grow and mature we all too often ignore and hide that “Divine
Spark” that has taken on our human flesh but it’s always there and can never be
extinguished - the secret of life is to do our best to keep that flame alive and burning brightly.

Author and teacher, Eckhart Tolle, once said:

You are the universe expressing
itself as a human for a little while

Maybe this is exactly what the “Christmas” story is saying
to us all.

Yesterday as we all went about the living of our routine ordinary
lives, something quite extraordinary was going on. All over the planet newborn babies were coming
into the world. All over the planet sparks of God were igniting the earth as “God”
was taking on our human flesh. The sun and moon danced, the cosmos was all
aglow and angels were singing to welcome the holy birth. Joy to the World!

About Me

I am a teacher, a writer, and a spiritual guide. I am an ordained Episcopal Priest and hold degrees in theology, philosophy, and communication. I am particularly interested in the common spiritual insights which the many various world religions share with one another.

My wife and I live in the beautiful desert in the Coachella Valley of Southern California.